


Train Sets and Phone Sex

by mcgarrygirl78



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama, F/M, Family, Friendship, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-08
Updated: 2011-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hotch knew if they ever came up with Academy Awards for best performance in an uncomfortable blended family situation he would be drafting his acceptance speech right now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Train Sets and Phone Sex

**Author's Note:**

> This story is written in the Casus Aliquis Pravus universe. I never expected this universe to speak to me but it has and I've enjoyed writing it so far.

The first text message came through during the gift wrap massacre. Four boys were very excited and that paper didn’t stand a chance. There was much laughter, squealing, and happiness. Hotch tried but he couldn’t quite bring himself all the way around. Sam could tell, which meant Jessie probably could too.

Haley surely didn’t care and Jack didn’t know. His father kept the jovial look on his face until his muscles were sore. He posed for pictures and made small talk about movies and shopping. Who the hell made small talk about shopping?

When his cell phone buzzed on his hip, Hotch took the first opportunity to excuse himself. In the dining room he could smell the roast chicken and beef. That brought a real smile to his face. Sam was cooking Christmas dinner and he knew his best friend was amazing in the kitchen. Hotch touched the revolving envelope on his phone.

‘ _Just checking in to make sure you're hanging in there, Agent Hotchner_.’—Emily

He smiled, another real one, and began to type his response.

‘ _My face muscles hurt from smiling so much. I keep repeating I'm doing this for Jack. I'm also doing it for Sam’s roast chicken and biscuits from scratch. How are you_?’—Hotch

‘ _I've had a tad too much to drink. The kids don’t notice but Nat has flagged my wineglass. I'm not so jittery anymore but I'm not feeling great either_.’—Emily

‘ _Have the kids enjoyed the day_?’—Hotch

‘ _Of course they have. They got to sing songs, watch cartoons, dance, and have pancakes. They’re happy. I know Lauren really misses her daddy and Declan won't say he does cuz he thinks it'll make me cry_.’—Emily

‘ _I'm sorry you have to cry_.’—Hotch

‘ _Of course you are; you're one of the good guys. I won't keep you anymore but I promised to check in and I knew today would be tough_.’—Emily

‘ _I'm glad you did. Seven days till our next movie extravaganza_.’—Hotch

‘ _I'm bringing Cukor and plenty of wine_.’—Emily

‘ _I’ll poke my head in later to see if you're hanging in there, OK_?’—Hotch

‘ _Thank you so much_.’—Emily

‘ _That’s what friends are for. TTYL…Sam taught me that one_.’—Hotch

‘ _LOL. TTYL_.’—Emily

Hotch grinned again just as Sam walked out of the swinging kitchen door. He handed his best friend a bottle of Sam Adams.

“How did you know I needed this?” he took a healthy pull.

“Call it best friend instinct.” Sam replied. “I thought it might help your face muscles relax. But from the look on your face now I'm suspecting that phone call had nothing to do with work.”

“Emily was checking in.”

“I thought you were going to put some distance between you two.”

“She’s in New York, Sam.”

“Really? That’s your answer.” Sam gave him a skeptical look.

“I don’t know.” Hotch sighed. “If I could explain why I felt so drawn to her, you know that I would. I'm keeping my feelings to myself. I'm just trying to be a good friend.”

“I'm not giving you any flack. I just don’t want you to be hurt, Aaron. I don’t want that for Emily either. I can't imagine what kind of weird purgatory she's in right now.”

“I don’t intend to make her life more difficult than it already is.” Hotch replied.

“Intent is a funny thing.”

“C'mon…”

Hey now, I'm really not busting your balls.” Sam said. “You know me better than that.”

“Yeah.” Hotch nodded. “She told me on Tuesday that she would send a text today to check in. That’s all she was doing; no more or less. She texted and I responded.”

“I believe you.” Sam patted his shoulder. “We better get back in there. That real grin should last you at least a half hour in the room with Haley.”

“One can hope.”

“Daddy, look it!” Jack squealed when his father walked into the room. He struggled to hold onto a box that was nearly the same size he was. “Papa Steve got me a train set. Look it!”

“That’s awesome, buddy.” Hotch knew if they ever came up with an Academy Award for best performance in an uncomfortable blended family situation he would be drafting his acceptance speech right now.

“I thought we could set it up in the den at home.” Steve said, wearing his smug, attentive smile.

“Its great, Jack.” Hotch tousled his son’s sandy hair and held his smile. “Trains are really cool.”

“I know.” He grinned. Teetering a bit, Jack put the huge box back under the tree. “I’ma open one of yours next, Daddy.”

Jack practically dove under the 7 ½ foot blue spruce looking for something else with his name on it. Hotch glanced at his best friend, the jovial smile still on his face.

“That was the fastest half hour of my life.” He said without moving his lips. “I think it might be a world record.”

“You do this for Jack.” Sam replied, not moving his lips either.

“Maybe next year Jack will want to go to Hawaii.”

“Ooh, this one has my name on it.” Jack said. “Let’s open this one, Daddy!”

***

He’d fallen asleep on his couch with his hand down his sweats. No, there wasn’t anything attractive about it but what could a man do. His cell phone was on the coffee table and the buzzing on the wood was loud in the quiet condo. Hotch had no idea what time it was as his eyes opened. The television was on mute but the classic _Christmas Carol_ with Reginald Owen was on. He grabbed the phone, which told him it was almost two and Emily was calling. He slid the green button across to accept.

“Hello.”

“Did I wake you?” she asked. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

“It’s nearly 2am.” He replied. “Even I sleep sometimes.”

“I shouldn’t have called.”

“Emily, what's the matter?”

Hotch sat up, all the better not to pass out again. That would be hard though because something wasn’t right. Emily sounded strange, a combination of stuffy and slurred.

“I hate Ian so much. I hate him Hotch, and I love him, and I fuckin miss him everyday. How could he do this to our kids? OK, he betrayed me, hell I could get over that I guess, but our kids? And I had to sit there and smile while Sean hugged all over them today. I'm so petrified he's going to snatch them and smuggle them away to Ireland.

“They don’t even have proper extradition laws with the U.S., did you know that. I keep having this nightmare that he’ll raise Declan to be just like Ian. I remember Ian said once that he wanted his children to have the good life that he never did. He didn’t want them to have to make bad choices because there were no other choices to make. My son can't become a terrorist.”

“Declan is not going to be a terrorist.” Hotch said. “He’s a happy, healthy eight year old who loves baseball and Arthur. Did Sean say something to upset you?”

“No. He just keeps saying he doesn’t want the children to forget where they come from. They come from Falls Church, Virginia dammit! They don’t know anything about The Troubles and I want to keep it that way. We didn’t want that…Ian didn’t want that. He tried to protect them. Didn’t he?”

“Yeah.” Hotch didn’t know if that was the truth. He loathed what Ian was but he also knew that he would die for Jack. Ian did that for Declan. “He moved you here so you could be safe, secure, and happy. No one is going to hurt your kids. I've seen you when your kids are in danger…you're a pit bull.”

“Damn right; damn right I am. No one is going to hurt them. I’ll kill anyone who tries.”

“I thought Natalie took your wineglass.” Hotch said.

“I smuggled a bottle into my bedroom. It wasn’t the best idea, was it?”

“Probably not.” He replied, shaking his head though she couldn’t see. “Was it at least the good stuff?”

“It was a bottle of Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling. It goes great with my cloves. I'm just tired of being in purgatory, Hotch. I would rather cry, mourn, and ache then to alternate between that, feeling nothing, being unsure what I feel, being angry as hell…its too schizophrenic. I'm tired of feeling like I'm being pulled in 25 directions.”

“I'm sure you are. I wish there was something I could do to help.”

“Not letting it go to voicemail was a good start.” Emily replied. “I'm dropping a lot on you aren’t I?”

“What do you mean?” Hotch asked.

“Oh c'mon, Aaron, you're not my shrink. You're a friend and you’ve been a good friend. I don’t know what I’d do without you. But you're new and you're seeing the really fucked up side of me.”

“I know what its like to go through something all alone.” He replied. “This is going to take some time but you will get through it.”

“You'll have to keep the wine away from me.” she said.

“I don't know. I know for a fact that you hit very hard when provoked.”

“Oh my God, I'm so sorry about that.” her laugh was almost manic. “I really hauled off on you, didn’t I? My mother would've been so mortified. I should've been beating the hell out of Ian.”

“I think you should just remember the good times with Ian.”

“That'll make it even harder. That'll make me put my head under the covers and never want to come out. It is much easier to be angry at him.”

“But that’s not the whole truth.” Hotch said. “Better the pain now then later when it breaks through all the walls you're building up.”

“God, is anything ever easy? I just want something to be easy.”

“Loving your kids is easy. Being a mom, a friend, and a decent human being is easy.”

“You're easy.” She said.

“Oh no, I'm hard. I'm very, very, ridiculously hard.”

Emily burst into laughter and Hotch had no idea how to respond.

“What? What did I say?” he asked.

“You said you were hard.” She laughed, snorted, and then laughed again. “Very, very hard.”

“Emily…”

“So tell me Agent Hotchner, just how hard are you?”

“I'm not…you don’t want to go there. I know you're just joking around but…”

“Haven't you ever had phone sex?” Emily asked.

“I can't say that I have.” Hotch replied.

Red flags, bells, whistles, and everything else were going off. He needed to put a stop to this conversation immediately. Especially since just the word phone sex woke his half-hearted erection.

“Are you serious? All those nights away from home, chasing the worse of the worse and you had no comfort.”

“I did alright.” His laugh was nervous. I just don’t think…”

“I can be so gentle when I comfort you, Aaron. I mean, it’s not just about sex. We can…”

“Stop.” His voice was firm. It broke his heart but he had to. They could not do this. “Emily, I want you to stop. This will change things between us and I'm not going to let that happen. You're intoxicated and you need to get some sleep. I'm so glad you called and I’ll always listen when you need to talk. But we can't do this.”

The other end of the line was silent for a long time. He wasn’t sure what else to say. Hotch wasn’t sure how drunk Emily was. She could get angry, weepy, defensive, or fluctuate between all three.

“Emily, are you still there?”

“I'm sorry.” She said. “I'm sorry I called you at this hour. Goodnight, Aaron.”

“Emily…”

The line went dead. Hotch pulled the phone from his ear and just looked at his screensaver. She’d hung up on him. He definitely didn’t know how to respond to that.

How was he supposed to sleep not knowing if she was alright? And then he had to drive two hours to Richmond tomorrow with Jack to see his mother and stepfather. After that, his son was heading to Disneyworld for a week with his mother and her new, attentive husband. Sighing, Hotch opened his text message option and started typing.

‘ _I hope you're OK. We’ll talk soon_.’—Hotch

There was no response as he sat on his couch for 15 minutes. Pushing it wasn’t a good idea so he just turned off the television and headed to his bedroom. He needed to get some real sleep. This day needed to be over. It had its ups and downs; holidays always did, so it was better to just let it end. Hotch was halfway to sleep when his phone buzzed. He fumbled for it in the dark, touching the text message envelope.

‘ _Friends definitely don’t let friends drunk dial. I apologize for making an ass of myself. Thanks for calling me on it and thanks for being a friend_.’—Emily

‘ _No they don’t. Apology accepted, anytime, and always_.’—Hotch

Exhaling and letting it all go, Hotch was able to go to sleep. No doubt this was going to stay on his mind. There might even be some discomfort the next time they were face to face. He still wanted to see her though.

They would work through this and move on. It was almost a new year…Hotch had a feeling many changes would come with it. Good, bad, and that uncomfortable space in between, he was preparing to roll with the tides. He had some good people rolling with him.

***


End file.
